November 2010    Download the Entire Issue (PDF)

Vol. 25, No. 11   What's this?

Underwater Scooter Racing.

from the November, 2010 issue of Undercurrent  

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At 5 foot 7 and 130 pounds, Michael Vivona has never excelled in sports. But that changed the first weekend in October when the 56-year-old engineering supervisor for an Orlando television station earned a championship in an emerging extreme sport: underwater scooter racing.

Vivona piloted his $7,000 Dive X Cuda 1150 to victory in a fleet of fifteen in the Wes Skiles Memorial Shootout in Key Largo, the third event of the newly formed Wreck Racing League’s Formula H2O circuit. The race was held 45 feet deep on the wreck of the Benwood, a 360-foot merchant freighter.

Vivona, a self-described tech head who overcame crippling migraines in both Saturday’s practice and Sunday’s race, credited his win to his size. “I’m real small. I’m more streamlined. The whole thing in the water is drag,’’ he said. There are very few sports that require you to be small. This appears to be one of those like a jockey racing a horse.’’ Vivona won a trophy, the checkered flag, a congratulatory underwater kiss from mermaid Toni Hyde and a decorative belt handed over by the series’ defending champion, David Ulloa. ...